Rising Above Mediocrity
by Benjamin Geiger

From Screwtape Proposes a Toast:

For “democracy” or the “democratic spirit” (diabolical sense) leads to a nation without great men, a nation mainly of subliterates, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and quick to snarl or whimper at the first hint of criticism. And that is what Hell wishes every democratic people to be.

January 2007.

That’s when the “OkCupid! Death Test” says I’ll keel over from a heart attack.

More impetus to lose weight, I guess…

I buy used textbooks whenever possible, but one of my textbooks this semester came shrinkwrapped and unbroken. It feels like a very high-quality textbook (it should be, for the price), so I didn’t want to simply pry the thing open and risk breaking the spine. It took quite a while to find a description of the breaking-in process, but I finally found one. The intent is to loosen the binding gradually, allowing a wide enough range of motion for typical book use, without causing spine damage.

Randy Butler, the president of the “Association of Seventh-Day Adventist Librarians” (ASDAL), describes the process in the “Preservation Corner” of the ASDAL newsletter:

There is a proper way to open books for the first time and prepare them for use or circulation. First, hold the book vertically or upright, spine down, on a flat surface. Second, hold the text block in one hand while allowing the front and back covers to slowly fall or settle to the table (or counter surface). Next, take 20-30 pages from the front of the book and lay them down, gently run the tips of your fingers (you can also use the edge of the palm of your hand) along the gutter (fold/crease line); repeat with the same number of pages from the back of the book all the while holding the remaining text block in a vertical position with your free hand. Finally, repeat this process with an equal number of pages each time, first one end and then the other, until the entire text block has been folded back into two even halves. The book is now ready for use.

Yes, I wanted to be a millionaire. I wanted to stroll into that studio, sit in the Hot Seat, and earn myself a few hundred thousand smackers (after taxes). I even wanted to meet that daytime host woman, whatever the hell her name is. I created my Phone-a-Friend list, I picked out clothes that would look okay on TV, and I even made plans to show up at 4 AM to beat traffic.

What I didn’t do was check the Official Rules: “Employees, their immediate family members (spouse, mother, father, daughter, son, sister, brother and their spouses), and those living in the same household, of The Walt Disney Company […] are not eligible” (section 2E). For those of you who don’t know, my father is a Cast Member at the Walt Disney World Resort and is therefore an employee of the Walt Disney Company, making me, his immediate family member living in the same household, ineligible.

While I certainly understand Disney’s motivation for this rule, it is a bit irritating, if not unexpected. Then again, I think Jeopardy! is more my style anyway.

There’s still a chance I could be in the audience, though. A friend from RADP is attempting to be selected as a contestant. If she does, she’ll list me as a companion, so I’ll get a guaranteed seat in the audience and might even show up on TV. Stay tuned.

Update: Alas, it was not to be. She wasn’t chosen as a contestant, so I didn’t get into the audience.

I learned my lesson from last term. Instead of taking five technical classes, I’m only taking four. I also have my driving down to three days per week, two to Tampa and one to Lakeland.

What I’m taking this term:

• CIS 4930: “Intro to Computer Graphics,” Hawat. Algorithms and techniques for graphics drawing and rendering. (This is very low level stuff; the only thing we are allowed to pull from the underlying graphics system is a function to set a single pixel to a specific color. Everything above that, we have to implement.)
• EEL 3100: “Network Analysis and Design,” Gordon. A continuation of Intro to Electrical Systems 1. Variable frequency analysis of various electrical circuits. (The “network” in the title refers to electrical networks, not computer networks.)
• CDA 4205: “Computer Architecture,” Harlow. Low-level analysis of the specifics of processor design and architecture.
• EEL 4935: “Electronic Materials,” Schlaf. Detailed study of electron flow, primarily within semiconductors.

I hope this is enough of a reduction that I won’t go insane at the end of the term like I did during the last.

I’m involuntarily following a tradition of not sleeping the night before the first day of classes. I tried to sleep but couldn’t.

Now, I’m sitting in the computer lab. My first class is an hour away. I’m already exhausted.

At least I only have one class today.

This is a post I wrote on my practically unused Xanga site. It explains precisely why the site is unused.
There’s more! (click here to read)

Like so many others, I read the indomitable Websnark. I’m also aware that Eric Burns, the author, has lost a significant amount of weight through gastric bypass surgery. Today he posted to his LiveJournal and crossposted to Websnark about his small (pun intended) triumph. (Few understand how important small triumphs can be to one who is accustomed to none.)

In short, he was able to stand up unassisted after falling on ice, something he couldn’t do a year ago:

I was helpless. I felt worthless. I felt like Darwin was standing over me, waiting with his chainsaw and smirking. I didn’t deserve to live. Well. That was then. I’ve lost over a hundred and twenty pounds since then.

I’m glad to say that I’m not large enough to require surgery to lose weight. I’m fully mobile; I can pick myself up after a fall. But I’m still obese, and it’s nice to know that life will get better as the pounds peel off.

You may have noticed the minor change in this site’s appearance. That’s because I tweaked the theme. The only real changes (beyond converting the old template to a theme) were to the header.

Themes are the primary feature I’m excited about. WordPress version 1.5 will have theme support, which will make it much easier to upgrade. Right now I’m running a nightly build (beta 2005-01-07, as of writing). It’s not without its flaws; Trackback and Pingback support are broken, for example, but that’s the price of running cutting-edge software. Since theme support makes it so much easier to upgrade, I can stay on the cutting edge without much effort.

Also, I’m running a few new plugins. Spam Karma is the most notable; it completely overhauls the old spam prevention mechanisms in WordPress and turns them into an extremely effective system. Croissanga lets me automatically send my entries to Xanga.